Applying MRI for Investigating Brain Plasticity Resulting from Attention Training on Healthy Highly Educated Subjects

Bob Hou¹, A Smith², J. Wiener², J. Chong², Julie Brefczynski-Lewis¹, D Kerr², D. G. McLaren³, Marc W. Haut²

Attention training (AT) results in changes in brain structure, grey matter and the connections of the structures (i.e., brain plasticity). Here we present our study on applying resting state functional MRI (rfMRI), DTI, and high resolution structural images to examine the impact of AT on brain plasticity of healthy highly educated subjects. Our hypothesis was that brain plasticity including functional and structural connectivity and grey matter volumes results from AT within 2 weeks. Our results of rfMRI, DTI, and tensor based morphometry (TBM) on the AT of the healthy highly educated subjects demonstrated the brain plasticity indeed happened within 2 weeks.